Road Trip Review 25th January 2017

Each DoomMaster concert review will be complete with a roadtrip review that features mini-reviews on anything interesting that happened on the way to the venue. This includes albums in the car, notable purchases, as well as comments and shout-outs to any halfway decent record store we find along the way. The associated concert for this set of road reviews can be seen here

Roadtrip 25th January 2017Reviewed 19th February 2017 by DoomMaster

Roadtrip Setlist Mini-Reviews:

Bloody Hammers - A Lovely Sort Of Death

Released in 2016, A Lovely Sort Of Death by US-based Bloody Hammers features an interesting mix of something reminiscent of Type O-Negative with some kind of 80s goth and maybe a bit of the doomy-er portions of Triptykon or Celtic Frost. There's hardly any actual metal to speak of in this release but its accessibility allows for a few catchy tunes, making this album a fun listen although some tracks are a bit inconsistent in quality. After a spin of their back-catalogue I can safely say that this is the only album of theirs I enjoy.

This was picked up at Cheapo by a friend due to the Magic Card-esque artwork and actually turned out to be a pretty decent slab of blackened death metal. This US band reminds me a lot of a more melodic version of their more well-known country mates Aurora Borealis and early God Dethroned. The ferocious vocals and lead melodies should spice up any car ride or serve as some decent background music but don't expect any depth. That being said, this is a solid blackened death metal album so who the hell needs depth anyway?

No trip to any record store is complete without a lo-fi black metal purchase. I picked this one up on a whim and got pretty much what I expected. Hyper-compressed razor tremolos with a few unplugged interludes make up a majority of the original content here as three of the seven tracks are covers. The actual Ashen Light songs are actually fairly accessible as far as raw black metal goes, although very repetitive and have the musical virtuosity of a toilet paper roll. Thankfully the band gave the covers of Darkthrone and Immortal their own twist as I tend to hate direct rip-off covers. According to Metal Archives this Russian outfit played some black folk in their early days, so this band should be able to offer something to fans of either genres.

Having some previous experience with Russia's Inferius Torment with Korpi's cassette copy of their excellent EP War Against Christianity, I was extremely excited to find a copy of this at Cheapo. Unbeknownst at the time, Your God Liar is actually mostly composed of re-recordings of all six tracks from said EP. No matter though, as each track is no less than quality in-your-face black metal. Everything on the album is fuelled by pure hate and blasphemy with the natural feel given from a warm, fuzzy guitar tone and melodic undertones make it all the more impactful.

This album was one of my all-time favorites back in high school and I was absolutely blown away when I found it in the used section at Cheapo. The US-based band along with Swedish vocalist Jens Carlsson deliver some absolutely balls-to-the wall power metal here among the likes I've never heard other than Jens's other band, Persuader. Frequent use of harsh vocals and heavy riffs give the album a thrashy feel while Jens's layered, empowering singing akin to Hansi Kursch of Blind Guardian keep the album rooted in power metal. I cannot stress enough how much of a breath of fresh air this album was for me in this genre and it pains me to think of how unknown it is.

Cheapo Discs is a trio of record stores in the Minneapolis area. Having yet to visit the Minneapolis or Saint Paul locations, this review will cover solely the Blaine store. This location has an incredible (almost everything you can think of) selection of death metal, but is lacking in other well-known genres other than the staples. They also have a massive recent arrivals section which consists of entirely used CDs, meaning this stock can be a treasure trove of rarities depending on what is sold to them. Their vinyl collection is decent but the Blaine location doesn't buy vinyl which restricts the section to new full priced items. The walls are lined with cassettes but mostly consists of non-metal genres and from what I hear their other locations carry a larger selection of vinyl and cassettes, so I'd suggest going elsewhere for these formats. CD prices are in the $10-$15 range for new and $2-$10 for used unless the item is particularly rare. Overall this place is worth a long drive to fill out your death metal collection and other rarities in the used section.

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